Feeling Defeated

[Lumen]

I have been playing FFXIV for over a year now and there has definitely been a lot of positive changes and I have had a lot of fun.

However, lately I have been feeling completely defeated while playing this game. The total reliance on random drops with ridiculously low drop rates for content such as Ifrit, Moogle, raids, coffers, HQ mats, materia, hamlet, and now apparently artifact weapons will require a combination of many of these, is completely un-motivating. (Yeah this is another one of those threads @_@; but this is a major problem in my opinion)

In all seriousness though, this is a game and should not cause the level of frustration, or perhaps even resentment it does. I'm not saying everything should be handed to us, but for some of us bad luck follows us around (I spent a month and a half doing Darkhold to get the Revolutionary Bliaud, done Ifrit probably 100 times and have only a single totem and a bow i cant use to show for it). This game will need to alienate it's players by defeating them in this manner.

Aside from raising drop rate and such, personally, I would like to see most things changed to system like Garuda drops implemented for applicable content. This would provide a sense of accomplishment as well as a motivation to continue doing the content. I would also like to see a system that would allow for trading in a drop you cant use, either to some one who can or to an npc in exchange for one you can. I realize I am reiterating a lot of things already said on the forums, so sorry about that, but I feel that this needs reiterating.

Thanks for your time reading my rant.

[Thanos]

You can trade in Ifrit weapons now to GC for 2800 seals!

[Hulan]

Someone on the dev team really loves Skinner Boxes. That being said, my suspicion (and I'll admit, it's entirely a hunch and has no grounding in fact), is that they are doing everything they can to keep the 1.0 game going and populated with a skeleton crew while the rest of the team works on 2.0. Skinner Boxes are the fastest and easiest way to artificially keep someone playing a "game" for a long time, so it's no wonder they would be over-utilizing it to keep people around until 2.0.

If that is the case, hopefully we will see a substantial decrease in pRNG based content in the future (read as 2.0+).

[Elexia]

In short:

1. Raise lockout timers = overall raise in drop rates.

2. Trade in unwanted stuff for GC seals.

3. Garuda's 100% drop rate outside of weapons isn't good for other content because 100% drop rate on Darklight gear wouldn't make much sense without scaling down it's stats (basically making it not worth it.) Every MMO tend to negate almost every gear previously released in a new patch due to it having a high droprate and to give incentive to do the new dungeon. A sense of progress is basically completing these dungeons 100% excluding drop rates, since you get achivement for killing the main boss(es) < That's the progress, the gear is basically what makes the deal sweet.

4. Relic weapons isn't that bad considering the 3 main points:
-You had since May to work on prereqs before knowing it was regarding "relic weapons or af weapons", most just assumed it would be for it even though we had no clear confirmation that it would be regarding af weapons in particular.
-Most everyone had a double+ melded class weapon or other weapon since it was possible to meld things, so the requirement of this shouldn't have been a problem which is more than likely why SE threw this in, because it's what people were already doing. Not everyone but these weapons aren't for everybody.
-You can't complete it now, so you can take your time with it and go with the flow, rather than rush through it and burn yourself out.

So in all actuality, SE needs to change a lot about the content start with lockout/cooldown timers since that above all is the reason the RNG is extreme. Every MMO has RNG tied to it in some fashion, but unlike some, you can spam dungeons and 'hard content (primals nonburn setups)' in this game, a lot of MMOs have at least a few hour lockout.

[Leoheart]

In short:

1. Raise lockout timers = overall raise in drop rates.

This one sounds pretty good at first, but then.. what does one do inbetween timers?

[TokyieRage]

They said they are playing alot of western style games, like WoW and SWTOR. So cross your fingers for guarnteed drop rates of different items for different classes. I mean damn, sky and sea wasnt even as bad as getting DL. Reminds of Dynamis before they raised drop rates. /cry

[DeadRiser]

I don't want guaranteed, 100% drop rates. I honestly don't think anyone does. I don't mind grinding some content out. I just want to feel rewarded like others do. Tired of doing speed runs on AV/CC 100 times when someone can get one peice on their third run. Don't even start with Relics lol

Garuda was PERFECT example. Only reason it is dead now is because the people that decided they wanted to keep doing the exploit when Yoshi said it was "ok". Stupid people kiling their own content... THEY SCREAMED for a challenge and now that they got it, they went with the exploit way. Pathetic. Anyways, back on topic....

[Rau]

This one sounds pretty good at first, but then.. what does one do inbetween timers?

other content.

[Airget]

I kinda of think of lockout timers like this. In an XI like system it could range from 1-3 or even a week based on what you were doing. Even then the content drop wise wasn't balance out but you have to ask yourself what concept is more open to a flexible schedule.

A system in which you can only do an event once every 3 days
Dynamis:Monday-Thursday repeating (drop rate of 10%) 1-3hr event with lots of planning ahead to focus on what you want
Or a schedule in which you can do it to your heart content (drop rate 2%) with only a 30-1hr time investment.

overtime it would clearly show that the "to your hearts content" concept would give you an overall better drop rate compared to the "limitation" concept since you would be free to choose how often you would like to do it.

When a schedule is set to restrictions you also have the fear of people not being able to make it because somethings comes up and then you are left with a weaker force to fight for you that day. With the current setup though people are free to adjust the schedule based on the group.

In the old dynamis setup it was pretty much
Are you around Monday
Are you around Thursday
Please keep these 3 hr segments open during these times.

In XIV it's
When are you free?
Ok you're good on Monday then we'll make that concrete
How about other days?
Well normally Tuesday, Friday are 100% but other days I'm not so open, but with enough notification I can make exceptions if needed.

You do ifrit Primal:
Monday 8-11, beforehand have people gather their own requirements and plan to do 5-6 Ifrits based on how it goes.
You go into fight get it done 1-2-3 no in betweens no setup, no running through dungeons to reach the boss just kill ifrit, get reward, reobtain quest and wait for the 15min timer to run down.

Now unlike XI, you could choose to do this very even again tomorrow from 8-11 since everyone is available those days, overall the XIV concept comes down to your own persistence while the XI concept comes down to following a schedule and even then you spend more time standing around twiddling your thumbs waiting to start an event rather then actually doing something in game.

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I will level in one way though they should offer something for persistence, if you do something enough you should show something for it maybe even a staggering increasing in loot gain.

Like let's take ifrit for example and assume the weapon drop rate is 1% and the totem drop rate is 25%
Beat Ifrit once and get nothing
=Next time you beat Ifrit the drop rate will be 1.5% and 28%
Beat again and get nothing
=2% and 30%
Again and get nothing
=3% and 33%
Beat and get a weapon
=next time you fight ifrit drop rate will be set back to 1%/25%

---
While sure it's not a lot, a slight increase in drop rate would at least show a reward for pushing to continuously fight Ifrit without having to rely on methods which pretty much put an expiration date on said content. I'm just not a fan of basing it around tokens in which you can say to yourself, well I'm guaranteed to have everything by 100 fights, I think luck should still be a factor in things, since MMOs do have a luck factor to them. What's the point of getting/obtaining a cool weapon or piece of armor if it just came down to doing event x enough times to obtain it. Then you would just be saying to yourself, only need to do it 5 more times rather then thinking to yourself with a positive attitude that surely this time I'll get something from this run.

The charm of an mmo is the mystery of never knowing what you'll get or how things will turn out. Something your luck may be sour and it'll take you 50 tries til you finally get that rare piece of armor, other times you might get lucky and get that rare sword on your 1st try. That's what keeps things interesting. Making things to easy to get takes away the uniqueness of said item, in terms of relics, that's exactly what they are, hard to obtain pieces of equipment which take A LOT of motivation to obtain. If you don't have that motivation or drive to press your luck on events/double melding expensive weaponry then don't do it. But those that do will have something to show for it in the end.

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Overall you really shouldn't feel defeated, you should just pull back from events, yes it's nice to want to get everything but you have to just accept the fact that sometimes luck just isn't on your side. if you feel an event becoming to tedious then step away from it for a while and do something else. Go back to it when you feel ready to do it and the drop rate won't feel as daunting as it does now. The only reason why it may feel so demoralizing is because you are thinking to yourself, I spend 6-12hrs doing the same event and I have nothing to show for it. If you just stagger your times and do it in 3hr intervals a day or every other day then you won't feel as defeated when you don't get anything, you'll just say I didn't get it during this run but tomorrow's another chance to obtain the piece of gear I want.

Just stay positive and remember that it's skill that allows you more attempts to obtain loot without skill then you run the risk of a lot of failed runs which means spending hours upon hours with nothing to show for it. At least with consistent victories you can show that with every win you are getting a treasure chest and that you weren't spending time on a run that ended up in failure.

[Delsus]

This one sounds pretty good at first, but then.. what does one do inbetween timers?

Depends how long a cooldown is added, how about FFXI style 72hrs for every dungeon, one a day decent drop rates and all content cleared in 2 weeks wondering what to do till the next patch?

SE need to keep players playing and right now with the slimmed down dev team working on 2.0 they can only work so fast and this is a way to pull content out, come 2.0 we shouldn't have this problem.

With how people are talking they want 15min cooldown all drops 100%, then what would you do till the next patch?